


A Living Weapon

by SenselessRhythm



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Brief mention of needles, Juvie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 04:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2095410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenselessRhythm/pseuds/SenselessRhythm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mask was fit snug over his mouth and nose. Bright green eyes already growing droopy with the first breath. </p><p>"Count backwards from twenty."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Living Weapon

The mask was fit snug over his mouth and nose. Bright green eyes already growing droopy with the first breath.

"Count backwards from twenty."

20.

The school explosion had injured almost half the student population. It hospitalized twenty. A dozen were in serious condition. There were no deaths, but there might as well have been. He hadn't meant... Tommy stared at his still vibrating hands. They looked just the same as they had the day before. Kneeling there in the rubble, Tommy was arrested and manhandled into the back of a white and black van. There was no one protecting him. No one vouched for him. No one explained how he managed to blow up his school without the use of some heavy equipment. No one spoke to him at all.

19.

No one told him he was a mutant.

18.

The handcuffs are heavy, and encompassed his hands, and forearms. Protection, he thought, in the case he tried to blow up the courtroom. They clanked together as he was led down the hall. The guards on either side of him didn't touch him, didn't look at him. A defiant smirk had been glued to Tommy's face since they retrieved him from his holding cell, even as he felt himself crumbling. As he was led into the court room, he took note of the absence of his parents.

17.

Tommy Shepherd, age fourteen, was found guilty of deviant mutant behavior, reckless destruction of private property, and assault.

There was a brief pause.

Tommy Shepherd, age fourteen, is found guilty of deviant mutant behavior, reckless destruction of private property, and aggravated assault due to the nature of his abilities.

_He is sentenced to four years in juvie, where after he turns eighteen, his sentencing would be re-evaluated._

16.

A black eye matched a bloody nose as Tommy was slammed against the ground. His hands were desperately trying to find some hold against the bigger, stronger, boy who held onto the front of his tan jump suit. The boy had physical mutations that took the shape of spikes along his arms, along with the ability to bend the light around him. The power had been too tempting and after an armed robbery gone wrong, the boy was thrown away like all the others. There was no rehabilitation here. There was no counseling. The guards turned a blind eye as Tommy spit in the boy's face and kneed him in the stomach.

15.

One week, two days. He dodged a punch, and with a lurch found himself across the courtyard.

14.

Tommy Shepherd learned he was fast. He never returned to his cell with black eyes or split lips or bloody noses again.

13.

Two and a half years.

12.

Five detention centers.

11.

One call from his mother.

10.

"I'm moving."

9.

She didn't tell him where.

8.

Some new superhero group calling themselves the Young Avengers were appearing more and more often on the little TV that hung in the corner of the run down recreational room. If he were a superhero, he could prove he wasn't a criminal. He could make up for the lives he ruined. He could do something good.

7.

They shut off the television and tell him he's worth nothing. He's a mutant. He's a bad guy. He'll never do anything with his life.

6.

Tommy doesn't feel like a bad guy.

5.

They tell him he'd better start packing, because he's moving again.

4.

He's dressed in white now. There are more doctors and scientists. The building smells like a hospital and sends a chill right down Tommy's back. They pinch and poke and prod him with needles. They take his blood, vial after vial.

3.

He wasn't led to a cell this time. Not like the ones he had been kept in for years prior. This one was out of the way, hidden down several dark hallways and tucked into an out of the way corner of the high security detention center. The door is thick, with nothing but a thin slit near the bottom of the door to serve as a means of delivering food. They don't call it solitary confinement, but it might as well have been.

2.

In the room he wasn't fast. The break from the never-ending energy should have been a relief, so why did it feel as though he was losing his mind? He paced. It became an almost obsessive habit.

1.

Testing and testing and testing, then more needles. No one spoke directly to him. They spoke to each other just fine, as though he were something different. Something that _couldn't_ understand. He was a mutant, and maybe he was a bad guy.

A living weapon, a living weapon, a living weapon. He didn't have a name, he only had a purpose.

0.

The mask was fit snug over his mouth and nose. Bright green eyes already growing droopy with the first breath.

"Count backwards from twenty."

**Author's Note:**

> There is honestly just not enough about Tommy Shepherd. So excuse me while I assume the worst until proven otherwise.


End file.
